Current and former high-ranking NCAA officials gave depositions this month attempting to clarify their internal discussions from 2012 that suggested the association bluffed Penn State into accepting severe penalties stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.

The NCAA on Friday released a set of emails and deposition transcripts that it says provides “important context” in the ongoing litigation brought by Jake Corman, a Pennsylvania state senator. Corman is suing the NCAA over the $60 million fine against Penn State. The trial is scheduled for January.

Documents released by the NCAA try to show the association carefully considered how to handle the findings from former FBI director Louis Freeh, who concluded that several Penn State officials helped cover up Sandusky’s crimes. Then-Penn State president Rodney Erickson agreed to NCAA penalties that have since been reduced.

Earlier this month, the plaintiffs released internal NCAA emails suggesting the association bluffed Penn State into accepting the sanctions while questioning the NCAA’s jurisdiction on the matter. Julie Roe Lach, then the NCAA director of enforcement, wrote in a 2012 email that she “characterized our approach to PSU as a bluff” because the NCAA might not win an enforcement case before the Committee on Infractions.

Roe Lach testified Nov. 11 that she had concerns of how successful the NCAA investigative unit would be “to actually get people to talk to us to the degree and scope and breadth that the Freeh Group did. How successful would we be in getting the documents, in order to unearth facts to then decide what violations occurred that would then bring charges?”

Roe Lach said she didn’t know what was being communicated to Penn State “but I wanted (NCAA president Mark Emmert) to know that to me, it wasn’t an automatic that this would wind up before the Committee on Infractions.” She said the consent decree “appeared to be a good option” for Penn State “based on what I knew at that point” because it appeared to be  “reasonable” resolution for both sides.

David Berst, NCAA vice president for Division I governance, testified that Emmert was correct in trying to change the culture at Penn State, even though Berst disagreed with the process at the start.

Berst said many “good people, sports fans accepted anything that was said by Joe Paterno as the answer to any question. And I knew Joe and understand how that viewpoint could take place. But the failure is in the failure to act appropriately when the time came for that to occur.

“So that had to change in some fashion. I believe Mark Emmert did the right thing to try. Even though I disagreed with the process in the beginning, I would testify, and am, that … he had full authority to try to start (the) enforcement process (and) that the executive committee had full authority to act under matters that are fundamental to the association.”

Berst said he opposed NCAA enforcement becoming involved. “I can’t say that it had no jurisdiction,” he said. “I just hadn’t done it that way and didn’t believe that was appropriate.”

When asked if NCAA enforcement had jurisdiction on the Penn State case, Roe Lach said that based on her reading of the Freeh Report at the time “there was a genuine issue for the enforcement staff to consider issuing a letter of inquiry and initiating an investigation.” Roe Lach said there seemed to be “real questions about administrator unethical conduct … and then also some larger institutional control issues.”

Emails released by the NCAA showed that Penn State attorney Gene Marsh, a former chairman of the Committee on Infractions, agreed with Penn State’s decision to accept the penalties.

“I had to weigh accepting this outcome versus what might come with a traditional infractions process in an opinion,” Marsh wrote to NCAA chief legal officer Donald Remy and Berst in July 2012. “I laid it all out and gave my opinion, but the call was not mine. I think they made the right choice. There will be caustic critics and experts on 'due process' etc. I'll get tagged I am sure, but I could truly care less. Truly. Folks who comment from the outside are all hat and no cattle.”

More than a month later, Remy wrote to Marsh and indicated that a majority of the NCAA’s executive committee “favored the death penalty.” Penn State’s “cooperation and transparency” resulted in the presidents changing their opinion, Remy wrote.

Berst’s deposition also shed some light on the length to which the NCAA has gone to outsource investigations minus subpoena power. Berst revealed he contracted 25 arson investigators for “several” investigations in the 1980s to question highly-recruited players about possible NCAA rules violations during their recruitment.

“I used them in several investigations, and I would not say it didn’t pan out,” Berst said. “I would say they simply weren’t as effective as people who were full-time employees and subject to coming back and debriefing and so forth. They were more fans of power coaches than they were effective investigators.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyer asked if there was any reason arson investigators were used beyond the fact they had investigative backgrounds.

“No,” Berst replied. “My hope was that it was a group of folks with some enforcement background and integrity to be able to conduct inquiries on our behalf. It was a failed effort, however.”